Welcome to HVAC-Talk.com, a non-DIY site and the ultimate Source for HVAC Information & Knowledge Sharing for the industry professional! Here you can join over 150,000 HVAC Professionals & enthusiasts from around the world discussing all things related to HVAC/R. You are currently viewing as a NON-REGISTERED guest which gives you limited access to view discussions

To gain full access to our forums you must register; for a free account. As a registered Guest you will be able to:

Participate in over 40 different forums and search/browse from nearly 3 million posts.

electric furnace no duct work

I mounted a Coleman electric furnace in the basement of my camp to keep my pipes from freezing in
the winter if the mini-split can't maintain 50 degrees.I am not using any ductwork as the basement is just one large area.
Is there any thing I should do as far as setting the fan speed? Do I need to create static pressure because there is no ductwork?
Any tips to optimizing this simple set up would be welcomed.

Just curous, but for freeze protection, why not use something simplier, cheaper and with less moving parts like baseboard heaters or a wall mounted electric unit heater? You don;t need much if any airflwo just for freeze protection.

I only paid $150 for the furnace.Trying to keep the first floor, 896 sq. ft.,10 ft ceilings, poured concrete and the 2nd floor,stick built,which is very well insulated from freezing.I figured I need 40k btus.The first floor is in a flood zone so trying to keep every thing down there as high as possible.

Where are you at location wise? For just freeze protection, you BTU requirements can be roughly 1/2 that of comfort heating. You only need to keep it 35-40F. If most of that is a basement, where the ground temps are above 40F, then now it takes even less. You probably only need 10k BTU's. I just ran adjsuted the number for the basic laod calculation in my home and at 3500sqft and a lot of windows, it would only need 50k BTU's for freeze protection of 2 floors and a basement.

I am in central Pennsylvania.None of it is basement(underground).The first floor is poured concrete(8" thick R value about .8 to 2)The 2nd floor is 2x6 walls,no insulation between 1st and 2nd floor to allow heat from first floor to go to the 2nd floor.Electric furnace is in 1st floor.I understand what you are telling me needing less btu's to protect against freeze.The furnace presented itself and I went that direction.Thank's for your replies I appreciate the help as HVAC is not my forte.